Truffle Festival: Majura Valley Experience

* I enjoyed the Majura Valley Experience as a guest

My relationship with truffles has been fraught. I’ve had dishes where I can really taste what is supposed to be a flavoursome delicacy, and dishes where I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t notice if it had been added or not. It’s been cheese with truffles and Frugii’s divine truffle ice cream which has really helped me understand the flavour and what I should be looking for, but I’ve still come away confused about whether my palate just isn’t truffle friendly. The Majura Valley Experience – a day of three different truffle experiences – promises to change all that.

We arrive at French Black Truffles off the new Majura Road at 10am for a truffle hunt. The sun is shining brightly but, as every Canberran knows, clear skies just means it’s going to be stupidly cold. In the shade of Canberra’s tallest mountain, Mt Majura, the cold is biting. As the last of the cars arrives, we head into a small shed where the magic happens.

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Oyster Bar at Capital Wines

Oysters. Wine. Gundaroo. Great company.

It’s as good as it sounds.

Murrumbateman Moving Feast

I’m a big fan of Canberra’s wineries, and Boyfriend and I have somewhat systematically been working our way through visiting every single one. The Canberra Region Wine Harvest Festival is permanently marked into our calendars (with visits in 2012 and 2013), and we’ve wined and dined our way through Lerida Estate, Lark Hill, Surveyor’s Hill, Capital Wines, Poacher’s Pantry and Mt Majura. Phew! You’d think we’d know what to expect, but the Murrumbateman Moving Feast still threw up some surprises. So, herewith are some lessons learned:

Canberra Region Wine Harvest Festival 2013

It’s another gorgeous April day in Canberra, and we’re on the road heading north to Murrumbateman for the Canberra Region Wine Harvest Festival. I haven’t told long suffering (chauffeur) Boyfriend yet that I think we can fit in five wineries in four hours, but that’s the goal.

Lark Hill Winery

As part of the Wine, roses and all that jazz festival last weekend, Lark Hill Winery hosted workshops on pale ale and sparkling wine making, and offered a competition on Twitter on Friday evening with five free tickets. In The Taratory was fortunate enough to win!

Sanur’s Balinese Restaurant, Belconnen

Sanur’s on Emu Bank in Belconnen is a regular haunt for me for a number of reasons. First of all, it’s always packed, with all types of people – a big mish mash of young and old, professional and not, families and couples and friend groups etc. This is always a good sign. Second, the variety of people also lends to a good atmosphere. It’s buzzing but you can hear yourself think – and hear each other talk! Third, it serves a local Canberra wine! A few different types of the Gallagher wine feature on a small but decent (and well priced) wine list. Fourth, the service is quick and friendly. (FINALLY.)

But what about the food?

Canberra District Wine Harvest Festival

This past Sunday was a spectacular day, and after enjoying the beautiful cars set against the gorgeous backdrop at Auto Italia 2012, we didn’t want to miss the Canberra District Wine Harvest Festival, so we hurried onto the Barton Highway and set off towards Murrumbateman.

The Wine Harvest Festival brochure promoted 24 wineries in the region, but strangely local favourite Poachers Pantry (which T2 recently visited) was missing. Of course, with 24 wineries and with only three hours available to us before their advertised closing time (5pm), there was plenty to keep us busy. The most difficult part was choosing exactly which ones we wanted to go to!